Running the PeopleSoft Benefits Administration Process

This chapter provides overviews of the Benefits Administration process, the Benefits Administration process flow, the Benefits Administration process status, and multiple event scheduling, and discusses how to:

• Set up the Benefits Administration run control process.

• Review Benefits Administration process results.

• Schedule events and assign benefits programs.

• Analyze disconnected events.

• Perform options processing.

• Investigate participant eligibility.

• Print enrollment statements.

• Enter participant benefit elections.

• Validate and load elections.

• Print confirmation statements.

• Reprocess events.

Understanding the Benefits Administration Process

This section discusses:

• The Benefits Administration process.

• Open enrollment.

• Event maintenance.

• The Snapshot process.

The Benefits Administration Process

You use the PeopleSoft Enterprise Benefits Administration process to perform:

• Open enrollment.

• Event maintenance.

• The Snapshot process.

Both open enrollment and event maintenance involve a similar cycle of procedures:

• Determination of participant benefits eligibility.

• Calculation of benefit costs and flexible credits.

• Creation and delivery of participant enrollment forms.

• Data entry of participant election choices.

• Validation of employee elections.

• Analysis of processing, enrollment, and election data.

• Loading of elections to the database.

• Creation and delivery of election confirmation forms.

Open Enrollment

You use open enrollment for periodic benefits reenrollment across your employee population.

Open enrollment begins by determining the benefit program under which each participant should be managed and the benefit options available to participants, including associated prices and flexible credits. It also identifies default enrollments for participants, such as new hires, who have no current elections, but who are eligible for a benefit program.

Elections are loaded as they are successfully validated. If problems or errors occur, individual participant elections can be rolled back, updated, and reloaded as necessary until the process is finalized. This diagram describes open enrollment processing:

Open enrollment processing for periodic benefits reenrollment across your employee population

Event Maintenance

You use event maintenance to process changes during the plan year and the enrollment of new hires. You might perform event maintenance every day, twice a week, or three times a month—whatever is necessary to properly react to changes in employee eligibility, process new hires, and update payroll benefit deductions.

Event maintenance identifies participant events that have occurred since the last run of the process that may change the benefits eligibility of the participant associated with the event. These events can include:

• Family status events, such as divorce.

• Job-related information changes, such as changes to pay frequency.

• Passive events, such as the reaching of the age of retirement.

• The hiring and termination of employees.

After event maintenance identifies employees who are associated with these events, it determines their current benefits eligibility according to the event and eligibility rules you've defined (assigning them new programs or plans as appropriate) and calculates benefit prices and flexible credits for their eligible options.

From this point on, event maintenance follows the same track as open enrollment.

Event Maintenance and COBRA Administration

PeopleSoft Benefits Administration initiates qualifying COBRA (Consolidate Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) events during the Event Maintenance process when a recognized COBRA event is finalized. The only exception to this rule is the Overage Dependent event, which is initiated by the COBRA process for both the Manage Base Benefits business process and Benefits Administration clients.

When Benefits Administration initiates the COBRA event, it populates the COBRA Activity table with the employee ID, employment record number, COBRA event date, COBRA action code (as defined on the Action Reason table) and event ID related to the initiated event. From that point, the activity (event trigger) is further processed only by the COBRA Administration system, not by Benefits Administration.

See Also

Creating Event Rules

The Snapshot Process

Before you begin using PeopleSoft Benefits Administration, you should establish an initial snapshot of your employees' current benefits eligibility. You can use the Open Enrollment process for this purpose. But if your first process is Event Maintenance, you need to use the Snapshot process first to establish a basis for managing subsequent changes in eligibility.

Essentially, the snapshot:

• Compares employees' current data to the defined eligibility rules.

• Records the options for which participants are currently eligible.

• Flags instances in which employees are ineligible for their current enrollments.

The process finishes in a single run of the Benefits Administration background process and does not calculate costs or change current benefit enrollment information. It assigns all employees a snapshot event that the system closes with a finalized status at the end of processing.

Other Uses of the Snapshot

Because the Snapshot process looks at your entire workforce, you can also use the Snapshot process to:

• Test your eligibility rule setup to find employees considered ineligible for their current benefits.

• Establish default coverages and credits for which employee input isn't necessary (because the Snapshot process can optionally update employee election data).

• Perform a final check of cost calculations by randomly selecting participants and coverages to track.

• Validate the loading of legacy benefits data by comparing current enrollments established by your old system against eligible options determined by Benefits Administration.

Provided extensions to the Snapshot process can help accomplish these tasks. You can specify the features that you want on the Snapshot Definition page. If you have limited time for your conversion activity, then you can use these features on a test database and go to the basic version when you make your actual conversion to Benefits Administration.

Understanding the Benefits Administration Process Flow

Running the Benefits Administration process can be complex because the events that you process can follow a variety of different paths. Some employees will have a number of events that require processing, others will have events that don't change their benefits eligibility, and in the case of open enrollment, many employees won't be picked up for event processing at all. In addition, you'll run into situations in which events process erroneously, which means that you'll need to reprocess them until you get the right result.

Remember that Benefits Administration processes events, not participants. At any given time, a participant may be associated with several unprocessed events that are of different event classes on different event dates. During a particular run of the Benefits Administration process, the system uses a set of rules to decide which event to process first and then processes that event from scheduling to finalization before continuing with the next one.

Ideally, you would run the Benefits Administration process two to three times to complete the processing of a participant event: Paul

1. During the first run, the system assigns participant events to a Benefits Administration processing schedule, and scheduled events are, in turn, assigned to a benefit program.

   In addition, Benefits Administration determines benefit program eligibility, options, and defaults, and calculates credits and rates for the participant associated with the event.

2. During the second run, after you've generated enrollment statements for your participants and entered their election choices into the system through the data entry pages, the system validates and loads updated participant plan, dependent, and investment election information.

3. During the final run, Benefits Administration finalizes elections for participants who did not return their enrollment statements and for participants with errors in their records.

   More realistically, errors will occur, resulting from incomplete rule setup, inconsistent HR data, or invalid election entry by the employee. After you review and correct the errors and run the Benefits Administration process again, the system moves the participants who had errors further along in the process.

Each time you run the Benefits Administration process, the participant events you process are assigned a process status designation, so you can determine status and correct errors.

See Also

Process Status and Benefit Program Assignment

Scheduling Events and Assigning Benefit Programs

Reviewing Benefits Administration Process Results

Process Flow Details

The next tables describe the general flow of the Benefits Administration process, which is divided into three parts.

Before Running Benefits Administration

This table lists the steps that you should take before running the Benefits Administration process:

Scheduling, Assigning Benefit Programs, Preparing Options, and Entering Elections

This table lists the steps for scheduling, assigning benefit programs, preparing options, and entering elections:

Validating, Loading, and Finalizing Elections

This table lists the steps for validating, loading, and finalizing elections:

Understanding the Benefits Administration Process Status

This section discusses:

• Process status and schedule assignment.

• Process status and benefit program assignment.

• Process status and option preparation.

• Process status and entering, validating, and loading elections.

• Process status and reprocessing finalized events.

Process Status and Schedule Assignment

During schedule assignment, Benefits Administration:

• Locates the employees who can be included in the process.

• Determines whether they have any unprocessed events.

• Assigns unprocessed events to the processing schedule.

• Determines which assigned events should be open for processing.

The Benefits Administration process can actively process only one event per participant at a time, but it can have several events scheduled for later processing. To manage the schedule, Benefits Administration uses an event status of Open, Closed, orVoid. Events must have Open status to be processed.

If you are running Open Enrollment or Snapshot, the system opens an OE or SNP event for all employees with the correct company, BAS group affiliation, or both. If you run Event Maintenance, the system creates events for changes to employee job, labor code, and address information. It also creates events for employees who have fulfilled the trigger conditions for a passive event, and it takes note of unprocessed events that were manually inserted through the Review Bas Activity page.

Events are dynamically opened and closed for processing based on event date and event priority (and by manual event status overrides).

See Also

Establishing a Processing Schedule

Scheduling Events and Assigning Benefit Programs

Process Status and Benefit Program Assignment

The system uses event and eligibility rules to assign the participants associated with an open event to a benefit program.

Participant events can be assigned to a single program, multiple programs, or no program at all. The following table details process status designations:

Note. You should not see the AN process status when the system completes the first run of the Benefits Administration process. The system uses this status value only during the Schedule and Program Assignment stage of the process. In option preparation, the next stage of the first run of Benefits Administration, the system moves events with an AN process status on to subsequent process status values like FA or PR.

In addition, if you see a set of events at the AS process status after Event Maintenance processing, employees are being processed who have more than one event assigned to them. In event maintenance, the system can assign and schedule all unprocessed events to a status of AS. However, because Benefits Administration can process only one event per participant at a time through option preparation and election validation, it must close those events and leave them behind at AS status until the open events are processed.

See Also

Reviewing Processing Results for Participant Events

Process Status and Option Preparation

During option preparation, the system uses eligibility and event rules to determine:

• Plan eligibility.

• Plan pricing.

• Available options.

• Default options.

• Proof of coverage limits for life and AD/D plans.

• Coverage terminations (as appropriate).

Any processing errors during this phase are typically caused by problems with:

• Eligibility rules.

• Event rules.

• The benefit program involved.

• The participant's HR information.

When an error occurs, you need to:

1. Evaluate the error.

2. Correct it.

3. Reprocess the event.

This table describes option preparation status values:

Note. If you run an Open Enrollment process with Finalize selected, NT and PR events are brought to FE status, and the system follows event rules to determine whether current elections or defaults should be loaded into the associated participant's records.

The following two flowcharts illustrate how the system assigns process status values during option preparation. The flowchart on the left shows the process status flow for AS events, while the flowchart on the right shows the process status flow for AN events:

Process status flow for option preparation

Process Status and Entering, Validating, and Loading Elections

In the second phase of the Benefits Administration process, you enter participant elections into the system through the data entry pages and then run Benefits Administration to validate those elections and load them into the benefits tables and to PeopleSoft Payroll for North America.

This table describes status values that you might encounter:

See Also

Process Status and Reprocessing Finalized Events

Process Status and Reprocessing Finalized Events

You can reprocess events at almost every stage of the Benefits Administration process, from scheduling to election entry. In many cases, event reprocessing does not involve process status values other than those described previously, but when you're planning to reenter participant benefit option elections, the system uses the special RE (reentered) process status as an interim status before rolling the event back to the ET value.

The following table describes the RE process status value:

The following flowchart illustrates the process status flow for ET events and follows it through to the final process status of FE. It also shows how the system uses the RE process status:

Process status flow for election entry, validation, loading, and reentry

See Also

Process Status and Reprocessing Finalized Events

Multiple Event Scheduling

This section discusses:

• Multiple event scheduling.

• Event status and retroactive events.

Understanding Multiple Event Scheduling

PeopleSoft Benefits Administration can process only one event at a time for an individual participant. The system always tries to process events in a logical sequence; usually this means that the system tries to process events in the order that they occur. The management of multiple events for a participant is referred to as event coordination. Here are some typical scenarios:

• Open enrollment participant event is in process and a family status change occurs for the associated participant.

• A new hire event is in process and the new hire moves to a new address (change in postal code).

• An event is retroactively entered into the system, affecting eligibility for current or future-dated closed events.

If multiple events occur on the same date, the system uses the event priority for that event class to determine processing order. The event with the lowest priority number is processed first.

Multiple events on the same date in the same event class are merged into one event. For example, an employee transfers to a new job and a new union on the same day. Both events are assigned to the MSC event class. The system creates one row for these two activities in the BAS_PARTIC table (which holds participant event records that are in process) and thereafter processes them as one event. The system indicates the merge by setting the Multi Activity Indicator field on that row to Yes. The action source for the activity is set to the first event read from the BAS Activity table. The order that the system reads events from the BAS Activity table depends on the database engine that you're using.

Event Status and Retroactive Events

While a participant event is in process, the system continues to recognize new events as they are triggered. If a new event has an earlier date than the event being processed, the system temporarily closes the event in process and opens the new event for processing. The first participant event's Event Status value changes from Open to Closed. When the new event finalizes and changes to a closed status, the system reopens the interrupted event and continues its processing.

The following table describes event status values:

When a participant event is processed ahead of other events with earlier event dates or lower Event Priority values, the system marks that event with out of sequence information. This information appears on the Schedule Summary, Control, and Participant pages and indicates that the eligibility information for this event may have changed (may be affected by these earlier, pending events), and therefore the event might need to be reprocessed.

An exception to the event coordination flow occurs when a new event interrupts (precedes) an in-process event, potentially affecting that event's assignment, eligibility, or rate recalculations. Rather than allow the system to reopen the stopped event and continue processing, you may need to use the Event Status page to queue the event for reprocessing such that its assignment, eligibility determinations, or rate calculations are refreshed with the most current data.

See Also

Reprocessing Events

Setting Up the Benefits Administration Run Control Process

This section discusses how to:

• Specify a process to run.

• Add participants to a schedule.

• Set up Open Enrollment and Snapshot routines.

• Process passive events.

Note. To access the run control pages, you need to create a run control code or use an existing one. The COBOL program that runs the Benefits Administration process, PSPBARUN, deletes this run control only after the process is successfully completed.

Pages Used to Set Up the Benefits Administration Run Control Process

Specifying a Process to Run

Access the Schedule and Chkpt Restart page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, Run Automated Event Processing, Schedule and Chkpt Restart).

Schedule ID	Select the schedule to run. When the schedule is selected, the page displays the BAS type (Open Enrollment, Event Maintenance, or Snapshot). The BAS type of the schedule determines which features you can access on other run control pages. The page also displays the company and BAS group ID defined on the Schedule table.
EM Process Mode (event maintenance process mode)	If you selected an Event Maintenance schedule, select the EM Process Mode: Schedule and Process Events: All BAS Activity entries are retrieved and events are created and assigned to all appropriate schedules. Then, any events belonging to the current schedule are processed further during this run. Schedule New Events Only: All BAS Activity entries are retrieved and events are created and assigned to all appropriate schedules, but they are not processed further during this run. Process Existing Events Only: Only existing events belonging to the current schedule are processed.
Chk Point Interval in Minutes (check point interval in minutes)	Indicate a number of minutes between commits; 60 is a reasonable number. If a job terminates abnormally, values for the last record processed appear in Restart Position.
Record Eligibility Results	Use to troubleshoot benefits processing errors related to eligibility. When this option is selected, the system checks eligibility for all benefit programs and for all options within the benefit programs for which the participant is eligible. It records the results of these checks on the Review Eligibility Results page. In normal processing, the system stops checking eligibility the first time a participant fails an eligibility check. Note. You should run processes with Record Eligibility Results selected only for small processing populations because the act of checking and recording all types of eligibility can result in long process run times.
Clear	If a job terminates abnormally, values for the last record processed appear in Restart Position and the run control is locked (all fields are disabled, because the parameters should not be changed when the process is restarted). During implementation, you may encounter many instances of runs that end abnormally as you test your table setup. You may decide not to complete an interrupted schedule—the Clear button will unlock the schedule and its run control. This feature would not normally be used in a production environment.

The EM Process Mode allows for more efficient processing of very large participant populations. The Scheduling process is very fast, but it does not allow for multiple concurrent batch runs because of its updating of the BAS Activity table. The assignment, option preparation, validation, and finalization activities are slower and more intensive, but do allow for concurrent processing. Thus you can achieve maximum throughput by performing an initial Schedule Only run followed by several simultaneous Process Existing runs using multiple schedule IDs.

See Also

Reprocessing Events

Adding Participants to a Schedule

Access the Participant Lists page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, Run Automated Event Processing, Participants List).

Additional fields appear on this page when you select the Process From Participant List check box.

Setting Up Open Enrollment and Snapshot Routines

Access the OE/Snapshot page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, Run Automated Event Processing, OE/Snapshot).

Use this page to reset the entire population in your Open Enrollment or Snapshot schedule to the selected action.

See Also

Pages Used to Reprocess Events

Processing Passive Events

Access the Passive Event Processing page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, Run Automated Event Processing, Passive Events Processing).

Passive events are not initiated by data entry, but are the result of the passing of a predefined period of time. For example, you might have an eligibility rule set up that enables employees to enroll in a benefit after 10 years of service.

Once you set up the parameters here, the system looks at every employee's job data (regardless of schedule) to determine whether a passive event has occurred. If a passive event is found, an entry is made to the BAS Activity table. If the employee has multiple jobs, an entry is made into the BAS Activity table for each job that meets the eligibility criteria.

To control mistakes with scheduling passive events multiple times and creating redundant data, history records are created that record passive event processing. When scheduling passive events on the run control, the history is referenced and warning messages are displayed if overlap occurs with a prior passive event process. You can ignore the warning and schedule the repeat passive event request; however, the Benefits Administration process triggers passive events only for those employees who were not picked up previously.

See Also

Reviewing Passive Event Processing History

Reviewing Benefits Administration Process Results

This section discusses how to:

• Review error messages.

• Review process results for schedules.

• Enter search criteria to review process results for participant events.

• Review processing results for participant events.

• Review event information for participants.

• Review plan type details for participant events.

• Review cost and credit information for plan types.

• Review passive event processing history.

Pages Used to Review Benefits Administration Process Results

Reviewing Error Messages

Access the Process Messages page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Review Processing Results, Processing Messages, Process Messages).

Note. You can also run the following reports to review Benefits Administration processing errors: Invalid Benefit Elections, Missing Elections, and Ineligible Participant (for Open Enrollment schedules only).

The event ID for Open Enrollment processes is always 0, because the system opens one Open Enrollment event for all participants in the Open Enrollment schedule during the initial run of the OE process.

A message often requires additional information or help in identifying the specific plan type or benefit option involved. Additional data is displayed in the generic Message Data area and is described in the message text.

Categories of Errors

When you run the Benefits Administration process, you might expect the following categories of errors:

Reviewing Process Results for Schedules

Access the Schedule Summary page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Review Processing Results, Schedule Summary, Schedule Summary).

Note. The Schedule table shows the state of the schedule population at the current moment, so if you have participant events marked for finalization but have not run the process, they will show up in Finalize Totals. Once you run the process for that schedule, all events marked for finalization will be finalized and will not appear in Finalize Totals.

This page shows a cumulative total over the entire history of the schedule. You may occasionally retire an Event Maintenance schedule (mark it to allow No New Events,) and create a new schedule for new statistics.

Process Status Totals

Only one event can be open for any one participant and benefit record number combination at a time. However, these totals represent the sum of all events, open or closed.

Event Status Totals

Voided events are not considered for any further processing.

Process Indicator Totals

View the participant event totals that currently have been requested to go through reprocessing.

When the system actually reprocesses events, the system removes them from these lists of totals as appropriate.

Finalize Totals

Displays the number of participant events that are currently marked to be finalized or to have defaults applied to them, but which have not yet been run through the Benefits Administration process.

You can flag individual events to be finalized and to have option defaults applied to them by selecting the Final check box for those events in the Controls page of the Processing Controls Update component.

Elig Changed Totals (eligibility changed totals)

View the number of participant events that may need to be reprocessed.

The system flags these events when the HR data used for processing event eligibility is changed, a new row affecting eligibility is inserted, or the row used for eligibility is deleted.

Three categories of eligibility changes exist: address (state or postal code), job information, and multiple jobs (changes to primary job flags).

Out-of-Sequence Event Totals

View the number of events that have been processed out of sequence by the system for the selected schedule.

An out-of-sequence event might need to be reprocessed because an earlier, opened event might have changed the defaults, eligibility, or event rule processing results for the later, closed event.

Disconnect Event Totals

View the number of disconnected events detected by the system during processing for the selected schedule.

Events can become disconnected when one or more of the HR records (PERSON, PERS_DATA_EFFDT, EMPLOYMENT, JOB) that is needed for eligibility processing for the event have been deleted.

See Also

Defining Open Enrollment and Snapshot IDs

Reprocessing Events

Reviewing Processing Results for Participant Events

Understanding the Benefits Administration Process Status

Manually Updating Event Status

Analyzing Disconnected Events

Entering Search Criteria to Review Process Results for Participant Events

Access the BenAdmin Processing Controls page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, Update Processing Controls, BenAdmin Processing Controls).

Enter your search criteria for the set of participant event records that you want to review or update. When you initiate a search, the system displays the results page to review the process status information of the participant event records that match your search criteria.

Note. You might use the Schedule Summary page to get an idea of the overall processing status of your schedule before using the Processing Controls Update pages.

Reviewing Processing Results for Participant Events

Access the BenAdmin Processing Controls page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, Update Processing Controls, BenAdmin Processing Controls).

This page displays the results from the criteria in the search fields.

See Also

Analyzing Disconnected Events

Manually Updating Event Status

Defining Open Enrollment and Snapshot IDs

Reviewing and Updating Event Status

Managing Multiple Jobs

Reviewing Event Information for Participants

Access the Participant page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Review Processing Results, Employee Event Detail, Participant).

Source	Displays the event trigger: a changed employee address, or job information; a passive event; or the insertion of a manual event.
Priority	Indicates the order of processing for events with different classes that occur for the same benefit record number on the same event date.
Multi-Activity Indicator	Indicates multiple activity records from the BAS Activity table had the same benefit record number, event date, and event class, and were merged into a single participant event.
COBRA Action	If the event is associated with an action that may make the employee eligible for COBRA coverage, the system displays that action code.
Empl Record (employment record number), Job Effdt (job effective date), and Effseq (effective sequence)	The keys of the primary job at the time of the event. See the Eligibility Source grid.
Addr Effdt (address effective date)	The effective date of the address (state or postal code) used for eligibility. See Eligibility Source grid.
Election Source	How the system received the employee's elections.
Option Notify, Confirmation Notify, Election Rcvd (election received), and Confirm Rcvd (confirm received)	The dates that you sent the employee his or her notification and confirmation letters, and the dates those letters were received.
Available through Self Service	If this option is selected, the participant can enter elections for the option processing results of this event through the PeopleSoft eBenefits application.
Eligibility Source	Shows the source of eligibility data that was used when the event was last processed. The first line is always the effective date of the ADDRESSES table that contributed address data to the eligibility processing. The remaining rows show each job that may have contributed eligibility information and the Primary Job, Include Job for Eligibility, Include Job for Deductions check boxes, used primarily in multiple job processing.

See Also

Manually Updating Event Status

Analyzing Disconnected Events

Creating Event Rules

Managing Multiple Jobs

Reviewing Plan Type Details for Participant Events

Access the Plan Type page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Review Processing Results, Employee Event Detail, Plan Type).

Curr Election (current election)	Options are: Yes: The employee had coverage in this plan type as of the event date. No: The employee did not have coverage in this plan type as of the event date. Only: The employee had coverage in this plan type as of the event date, but is no longer eligible as a result of the event. Coverage is displayed here only because it will be terminated. Future: The employee has a future-dated election in this plan type that the system will terminate.
Enroll Action and Coverage Elect	Until the event is finalized, these fields have default values of None and Elect. After finalization, Enroll Action can be either: None: No action occurred for this plan. Enroll: Coverage Elect is set to Waive or Elect. Term: Coverage Elect is set to Terminate. A participant receives an enroll action of None if the election for the given plan type matches the participant's current election. This way, if the participant stays in the same benefit plan for 20 years, only one enrollment record will exist rather than 20. Participants also receive an enroll action of None if an error occurs with the election, or no current election, when the participant is finalized.
BAS Error (Benefits Administration system error)	An error has occurred during eligibility, event rule, or election processing for this plan type.
Deduction Begin	The effective date of the coverage.
Ignore Plan	Reflects the setting on the Event Rules Table 1 page.
Billing	If the Enroll Action has triggered Benefits Billing, then billing parameters appear in this group box.

Note. Certain plan types (Life, Savings, Flexible Spending Accounts, Pension, and Vacation Buy/Sell) have additional plan-specific election information that appears above the Billing group box. This includes life coverage amount, savings contribution amount and rollover options, pension contribution amount, and vacation hours. A page link may also appear for displaying dependent, beneficiary, or investment information.

See Also

Creating Event Rules

Reviewing Cost and Credit Information for Plan Types

Access the Option and Cost page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Review Processing Results, Employee Event Detail, Option and Cost).

Default Election	When selected, this option indicates that the option will be assigned as a default to participants who fail to make their elections. It does not mean that this option has already been assigned to this participant as a default option.
Proof Required	When selected, this option means the participant must pass proof rules to legitimately enroll in the plan. These proof rules are stored in the event rules that you have defined for your Benefits Administration system.
Potential Tax Impact	Select to indicate whether a calculated deduction includes a possible tax effect, such as imputed income from group term life or dependent life.
History Only	Identifies options that the employee is eligible for but are not the result of the current event, and so cannot be chosen. For example, when a participant undergoes an FSC (family status change) event, such as a marriage, the event rules enable the participant only to choose between options that are available as a direct result of the change in coverage status.
Annual After Tax, Annual Before Tax, and Annual ER	These fields display the tax-class detail for an option's annual cost as calculated by Benefits Administration. The employer cost represents the sum of any N-Tax and T-Tax cost components.
After Tax Deduction, Before Tax Deduction, and Employer Deduction	These fields display the tax-class detail for an option's per-pay-period cost as calculated by Benefits Administration. The employer cost represents the sum of any N-Tax and T-Tax cost components.

See Also

Creating Event Rules

Reviewing Passive Event Processing History

Access the Passive Event History page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Review Processing Results, Passive Event History, Passive Event History).

From Date and To Date	The system searched this period for passive events during the run of the Benefits Administration process.
Search	Enter any combination of search criteria and then click this button to retrieve results that appear in a grid below.

See Also

Processing Passive Events

Scheduling Events and Assigning Benefit Programs

Open enrollment and event maintenance differ most in scheduling events and assigning benefits programs.

This section discusses how to:

• Schedule events and assign programs for open enrollment.

• Schedule events and assign programs for event maintenance.

• Manage unprocessed activities for event maintenance.

• Manually update event status.

Page Used to Schedule Events and Assign Benefit Programs

Scheduling Events and Assigning Programs for Open Enrollment

For each participant, the open enrollment event:

• Assigns the participant to the Open Enrollment schedule and creates an event (BAS_PARTIC).

• Reevaluates current benefit program eligibility and assigns the participant to an appropriate program.

The following flowchart illustrates the process steps for this phase of open enrollment:

Process steps for Open Enrollment

See Also

Managing Unprocessed Activities for Event Maintenance

Scheduling Events and Assigning Programs for Event Maintenance

Event maintenance begins by selecting event triggers, including:

• Changes to employee address, employment, and job information.

• Passive events.

The system creates rows for each event trigger in the BAS Activity table. Each event trigger in the table represents an unprocessed activity that has the potential to be processed into a participant event row on BAS_PARTIC.

Note. When you use the Review Bas Activity page to enter a manual event, you are really entering a row into the BAS Activity table.

The system evaluates each unprocessed activity and determines possible courses of action:

• Create a new participant event for the activity in BAS_PARTIC.

• If the creation of the new participant event affects the eligibility processing for an existing event, flag that event to indicate that it may need reprocessing.

• If the trigger information for the event has been deleted or changed, create a new participant event and flag it as being disconnected.

The event is assigned to the processing schedule that is most appropriate for the participant associated with the event. The system then determines the event's benefit program eligibility, whether it's been assigned to the specific schedule for which you're processing Event Maintenance.

Note. At this stage of event maintenance, the system might assign participant events to schedules other than the one you're processing. This way, when you run Event Maintenance for another schedule, you'll already have a set of participant events that have been assigned to benefit programs and are ready to go on to option processing.

The following flowchart illustrates the scheduling and assignment process for event maintenance:

Event maintenance scheduling and program assignment flowchart

See Also

Analyzing Disconnected Events

Managing Unprocessed Activities for Event Maintenance

Managing Unprocessed Activities for Event Maintenance

Before you run Benefits Administration for an Event Maintenance process, use the Review BAS Activity page Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollments, Events, Review BAS Activity, Review BAS Activity), to:

• Review the unprocessed activities that are currently triggered for your employees.

• Insert manual events for Event Maintenance processing.

• Delete unprocessed activities.

After you've begun processing your participants, you can continue to use the Review Bas Activity page to insert manual events.

You can delete any activity trigger record on the Review Bas Activity page, but only after careful consideration. Events are often triggered that have no effect on benefits; the system is designed to handle these sorts of events, so you should leave them in the system. One example is an annual raise that has no effect on benefits but that affects a great number of employees.

Note. When an activity is processed without error during the Benefits Administration processing cycle, the system deletes it from the BAS Activity table, which means that it no longer shows up on the Review Bas Activity page.

See Also

Adding Events to the BAS Activity Table

Manually Updating Event Status

Access the Update Event Status page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollments, Events, Update Event Status, Update Event Status).

This page displays all of the participant event records currently associated with a specific participant and benefit record number combination.

To open another event for processing, change the event status of the currently open event to Closed. Then change the event status of the event you would like to process to Open.

Note. The system flags the event that was in process as out of sequence, which means that the event may require reprocessing later.

You cannot manually change an event status to Void. You can change an event's event status to Void only when you reprocess the event.

See Also

Reprocessing Events

Analyzing Disconnected Events

This section provides an overview of event disconnection and discusses how to:

• Investigate and void disconnected events.

• Reconnect open enrollment or Snapshot events.

Understanding Event Disconnection

When the system flags a participant event as being disconnected, it means that information that the system uses to track the event, process it, or both was deleted at some point after the event was triggered. Once an event is disconnected, it can no longer be processed by the system, except to be voided. A participant event can become disconnected in two ways:

• The changed HR record that previously triggered the event is deleted.

• One or more HR records needed for eligibility processing no longer exist.

The disconnection needs to be analyzed to determine any impact on benefit processing of the participant associated with the event. If an event is disconnected after it is finalized, you may want to void the event through reprocessing.

Disconnection Due to Loss of Event Trigger

When the system processes event triggers on the BAS Activity table, it looks at the source of the triggered activity. If the triggered activity results from the change of address, employment, or job information, the system needs to determine what type of change occurred: an information insert, a data change, or a deletion of information.

• When you update employee state, postal code, or job information by inserting new records for that information into the system, the system creates a new participant event in BAS_PARTIC.

• If the trigger was a correction of those same types of information, the system sets an eligibility change flag for any existing participant event that depended on that information, indicating that reprocessing for the flagged event may be necessary.

• If the trigger was a deletion of participant state, postal code, or job information, the system disconnects the participant events associated with that information.

Note. When you correct the effective date of a particular address or job information record, the system simultaneously creates a new participant event and disconnects any participant events that were initially triggered by that address or job record.

Disconnection Due to Loss of Eligibility Information

When the system prepares options or validates elections for participant events, it must access the current HR records that provide the event's eligibility parameters. If eligibility data has been deleted or no longer exists as of the event date (because the effective date of the eligibility data was changed), the system can no longer process the event. It must assume that the event was originally triggered in error or has been superseded. Benefits Administration disconnects these events, preventing them from being processed further by the system.

See Also

Managing Unprocessed Activities for Event Maintenance

Investigating and Voiding Disconnected Events

Under most circumstances, you should verify that a disconnected event did not occur due to a data entry error in the HR data associated with the event.

You also want to review the impact of the event's disconnection as well as the impact of the correction of the event disconnection. For example, if the disconnection takes place because HR data was inadvertently deleted, the correction of that mistake will most likely cause the system to create new BAS_ACTIVITY records and possibly a new participant event.

If a participant event is disconnected after it has been finalized (also because eligibility information related to the event was lost), you may have to void the disconnected event to back out any election information it entered.

To void a disconnected event:

1. Access the finalized, disconnected event on the Controls page of the Processing Controls Update component or the Event Status Update page.

2. Select a Process Indicator value of Void.

3. Reprocess the event.

   When you do this, the system backs out elections associated with the event, sets the event status to Void, and sets the event's process status to RE.

See Also

Reprocessing Participant Events

Process Status and Reprocessing Finalized Events

Reconnecting Open Enrollment or Snapshot Events

Disconnected open enrollment or Snapshot events can be reconnected with the Schedule New Participants feature, which enables the automatic scheduling of participants who were added to the system after open enrollment or Snapshot processing for a selected schedule has begun.

The following sample sequence illustrates how a disconnected open enrollment participant event can be reconnected:

1. During scheduling and assignment for an Open Enrollment schedule, the system processes Open Enrollment events for three participants with the following employee IDs: 8001, 8002, and 8003.

2. The system disconnects the open enrollment event for employee 8003 because job eligibility information associated with the event has been lost.

   Employees 8001 and 8002 are scheduled, and assigned, and have their options prepared.

3. While employees 8001 and 8002 are reviewing their enrollment forms and making their new elections, you fix the event trigger information for participant 8003, resulting in a reinsertion of a record for 8003 in the job row.

   At the same time, a new employee, with an employee ID of 8012, is hired.

4. When you next run the Benefits Administration process for this Open Enrollment schedule with Schedule New Participants selected, the system picks up the new employee, 8012, and assigns an open enrollment event.

   The system also picks up the reinserted record for participant 8003, resulting in a reconnection of the disconnected open enrollment event for that employee.

See Also

Defining Open Enrollment and Snapshot IDs

Performing Options Processing

During the option processing phase of the Benefits Administration process, the system evaluates participant events for eligibility and applies event rules to determine the appropriate benefit plan options that are available to the participant as of the event's event date. The system determines the following things for the participant:

• Plan eligibility and available options.

• Option pricing and credits.

• Coverage and deduction dates (or terminations, if appropriate).

• Default options.

• Evidence-of-Insurability requirements, and coverage limits for Life and AD/D plans.

The results of the participant event evaluation depend entirely on the event and eligibility rules that you set up for the event classifications, benefit plan types, and benefit plan options involved.

Processing errors generally indicate that a problem exists with the design of the eligibility rules or event rules involved. They could also indicate that a problem exists with the HR information of the participant associated with the event. If errors occur, you need to evaluate the error to determine what (if anything) needs to be fixed. After you correct errors that result from program, rate, or rule design issues, you need to reprocess the events.

One of the most common classes of errors is an unexpected eligibility status. This is discussed in the following section.

When an event reaches a process status of PR (prepared), you may want to create enrollment statements for the participant.

Note. Option processing is the same regardless of whether the event is linked to an Event Maintenance or an Open Enrollment schedule.

Event Maintenance Only: Prepared Participant Events That Qualify for Termination

During Event Maintenance processing, participant events that qualify for termination of all coverages receive a process status of PR rather than being terminated automatically by the system. Full termination is a rather drastic event, and because it can occur inadvertently through a data change that causes an unexpected loss of eligibility to a benefit program, the system takes the conservative approach of stopping in PR status to give the administrator a chance to review the event. You must complete these termination events manually by flagging them to be force-finalized.

PeopleSoft Benefits Administration provides a workflow process called Find Terminations that searches for and delivers a list of participant events with a PR process status that qualifies their associated participants for termination.

See Also

Defining Eligibility Rules

Creating Event Rules

Investigating Participant Eligibility

This section provides an overview of participant eligibility processing and discusses how to:

• Review eligibility checks.

• Review job eligibility evaluations.

• Process flagged participants.

Understanding Participant Eligibility Processing

When you run the Benefits Administration process with the Record Eligibility Results check box selected on the Schedule and Checkpoint Restart page of the Benefits Administration Run Control component, the system performs an eligibility check for all employees who have not yet had their options prepared. The results of that eligibility check are displayed on the Review Eligibility Results page. You can use this information to correct errors in your eligibility rule or benefit program setup.

The system records only benefits eligibility that is appropriate to the process status of the event. For example, if the event is at a status of AS or later, the system does not record program eligibility checks, because program eligibility is determined before events are assigned. And if the event is at a process status of PR or later, the system does not record option eligibility for that event because its options have already been prepared.

The system follows these procedures when it makes eligibility checks and records their results:

• The system starts by checking eligibility for eligibility rules associated with benefit programs.

  If a benefit program fails the eligibility check, the system records that eligibility check but then moves on to the next benefit program in the sequence.

• After all benefit program eligibility has been processed, and if eligibility for only one program has been met, the system begins testing all the option-level eligibility rules associated with that benefit program.

See Also

Defining Eligibility Rules

Building Automated Benefit Programs

Setting Up the Benefits Administration Run Control Process

Pages Used to Investigate Participant Eligibility

See Also

Benefits Administration Reports

Reviewing Eligibility Checks

Access the Review Eligibility Results page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Investigate Exceptions, Review Eligibility Results, Review Eligibility Results).

Eligibility Fields

This group box displays each eligibility field tied to the eligibility rule and indicates whether the participant failed or passed the eligibility check for that particular field.

Reviewing Job Eligibility Evaluations

Access the Job Eligibility Evaluation page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Investigate Exceptions, Review Eligibility Results, Review Eligibility Results and click a link in the Eligibility Fields group box to access the Job Eligibility Evaluation page.

Processing Flagged Participants

Access the Report on Flagged Items page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Investigate Exceptions, Report on Flagged Items, Report on Flagged Items).

Schedule ID	To print flagged events from all schedules, leave this field blank.
Include Summary	Select to include summary information on all flagged participant events.
Reports Participants Flagged for	Select all of the criteria in this group box to use when reporting on selected participants.

Printing Enrollment Statements

This section provides an overview of enrollment statements and discusses how to:

• Run enrollment statements.

• Create print IDs for enrollment statement reprinting.

Understanding Enrollment Statements

Enrollment statements are an optional communication to the employee regarding his or her election options in response to open enrollment or other personal or employment-related events. If your company has gone completely paperless by means of self-service enrollment, you can choose to not generate paper forms. Enrollment forms can be created for each open event that has had options processed to at least a PR status.

Enrollment statements provide participants with a report of their:

• Current elections.

• Eligible options.

• Prices and credits associated with eligible options.

• Current dependent, beneficiary, and savings investment information.

You can modify the forms as necessary to meet the unique requirements of your company.

Note. To retain ease of data entry when you get your enrollment statement forms back from participants, order the options displayed on the statements the same way you'll enter them into the data entry pages. That is, make use of the display sequence entered for each plan and option when building your benefit programs.

The system prints new enrollment statements for participant events that have:

• A process indicator value of Normal.

• An event status of Open.

• A process status of PR, ET, or EE.

• A blank Option Notification Date field.

After the system prints an enrollment statement for a participant and participant event combination, the system updates the participant event's process status to NT (notified) and the option notification date to the date that the statement was printed.

See Also

Entering Participant Benefit Elections

Pages Used to Print Enrollment Statements

See Also

Benefits Administration Reports

Running Enrollment Statements

Access the Print Enrollment Statements page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Participant Enrollment, Print Enrollment Statements, Print Enrollment Statements).

The Benefits Administration Enrollment Form prints a generic enrollment statement for each eligible benefit program participant in the BAS Participation table. This enrollment statement includes the name and address of each participant, which options the participant is eligible for, and the associated price tags and credits (if applicable) for the options.

Creating Print IDs for Enrollment Statement Reprinting

Access the Reprint Selected Statements page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Participant Enrollment, Reprint Selected Statements, Reprint Selected Statements).

The system reprints enrollment and confirmation statements only for participant events with a Process Indicator value of Normal and a process status value of PR, NT, RE, ET, EE, or FE.

See Also

Managing Multiple Jobs

Entering Participant Benefit Elections

This section provides an overview of data entry for participant benefit elections and describes how to:

• Select schedule or participant mode.

• Enter benefit elections.

• Enroll dependents and assign beneficiaries.

• Enter dependent or beneficiary data.

Understanding Participant Benefit Elections Data Entry

You use the data entry pages to enter benefit elections that your participants make after reviewing their available options. Once you enter this election information into the system, you can have the system validate the elections without leaving the data entry component.

Note. The data entry validation process checks only to ensure that data has been entered correctly. It does not validate employee elections for participant events using eligibility and event rules. You have to run the Benefits Administration process to validate benefit information updates and finalize participant events.

Data entry needs can differ depending on the type of Benefits Administration schedule that you're processing and the volume of participants for whom you're entering benefits election data. To provide for these different needs, two data entry modes are available. You can enter election data by schedule or by participant.

Entering data by schedule is designed for open enrollment. This mode has been designed so that benefits clerks with a minimal amount of training in the Benefits Administration process can use it to quickly enter batches of employee elections in the order that they receive them. Validation is performed only on demand, with the rationale that the entry clerk would not be authorized (or trained) to correct employee errors.

Entering data by participant is typical for event maintenance. This mode might best be used by experienced benefits administrators who are processing events on an employee-by-employee basis. Each employee's data is validated before opening a new page for the next participant, with the rationale that a trained administrator would immediately correct errors.

Note. In both components, no functional edits are applied during data entry to maximize the ability to perform rapid entry. Functional edits are made only when validation is performed—during Save or on demand. All data entry errors are presented as warnings so that the pages can always be saved without loss of data.

Pages Used to Enter Participant Benefit Elections

Selecting Schedule or Participant Mode

Access the Event/Participant Selection page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Participant Enrollment, Perform Election Entry, Event/Participant Selection).

Select by Schedule	Click to switch between Select By Participant mode and Select by Schedule mode.
Ben Record (benefit record number)	Used by the participant mode only.
Event ID	Used by the participant mode only.
Search	Click to locate event information for this participant.
Defer Dep/Benef Enrollment (defer dependent/beneficiary enrollment)	Select to defer dependent and beneficiary enrollment until after the entry of employee elections is complete. This hides the Dependent/Beneficiary grid for each plan on the Option Election page to streamline data entry. Dependent and beneficiary enrollment would be performed from the Dependents/Beneficiaries page instead.
Defer Savings Investments	Select to defer savings investment enrollment until after the entry of employee elections is complete. This hides the Investment Allocation grid for each savings plan on the Option Election page to streamline data entry. Investment allocation would be performed from the Dependents/Beneficiaries page instead.
Hide Unused Items/Links	Select to streamline data entry by not displaying certain fields and navigation links if they are not applicable to a plan or option. This reduces the need to press Tab to move over unused fields, but it may break the data entry rhythm by varying the number of fields per plan.
Validate When Saved	Select to have data entry validated automatically when you save the record. When this check box is deselected, data entry is validated only on demand, when you click the Validate Elections button.
Excess Credit Rollover To	Overrides the default destination of excess benefit credits for the participant.
Validate Elections	Validates all plans and options for correct and sufficient entry. These are the same validations that are automatically performed when the page is saved if that feature is selected. All discrepancies are presented as warnings only, so the employee's elections can always be successfully saved for later correction.

Available Events

This group box displays the event associated with the selected schedule ID and employee ID after it's accessed by the system. For multiple jobs, more than one event might be found. Select the event on which you want to perform data entry.

Entering Benefit Elections

Access the Option Election page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Participant Enrollment, Perform Election Entry, Option Election).

Option Code	Select or update the benefit plan option currently assigned to the participant.
Special Requirements	Click to view the option's special requirements: Elect Required (election required): When selected, this indicates that an election is required for this plan type, based on the results of event rule processing. Proof Received: If this check box is available for selection, you can select it to indicate to the system that any required proof of insurability has been received from the employee. Until proof is received the system does not grant the employee's selected option. Cross-Plan Required: If the program rules for this option have cross-plan requirements, the system summarizes them here: XType (cross plan type): The employee must also make an election in this controlling plan type. XPlan (cross benefit plan): The employee must also make an election of this controlling benefit plan. Limit: Coverage cannot exceed the indicated percentage of the employee's coverage under the XType plan. DpndChk (dependent check): Indicates whether dependents must also be covered under the XType plan.
Enroll All	Click to enroll all available dependents or beneficiaries in a particular plan type. The system looks at the list of dependents and beneficiaries currently associated with the participant and validates enrollment eligibility against two things: Whether the dependent is eligible for the plan type based on the eligibility criteria as of the Coverage Begin date. Whether the dependent should be present in the grid based on the coverage code rules. The system inserts the new dependent and beneficiary rows for each plan type and overwrites all dependent and beneficiary records currently assigned to the benefit plan type in question.

Plan-Specific Election Fields

In addition to the standard data entry fields described previously, each plan type may have its own special fields required to complete the election of an option. Plan-specific detail information appears for Health (1x), Life (2x), Savings (4x), FSA (6x), Pension (8x), and Vacation (9x) plan types. These detail fields may appear for all plans within a category for consistency; your benefit plan definitions control whether entry is allowed or required, and these rules are enforced during final validation.

Health Plans

When entering information for health plans (plan type 1x), you may need to enter the health provider ID associated with the participant's medical plan and indicate whether the participant has previously seen the identified provider.

Life and ADD Plans

Life and Accidental Death plans that are defined as having their coverage amount specified by the employee as part of their election may require additional entry. You specify the coverage amount as either a multiple of salary or a flat amount (or both), depending on the benefit plan definition. You also indicate what benefit base (salary source) to use in the coverage calculation.

Savings Plans

When entering benefits election information for savings plans (plan type 4x), you may be able to determine before and after tax matching information and specify savings rollover information for the savings plan if the plan was set up to allow for the adjustment of these values at the employee level.

Each Flat Amount and % of earnings combination of fields is available if an applicable limit is entered on the corresponding fields in the Savings Plan table for before-tax and after-tax contribution percentages.

You can also allocate investments as long as the participant has not selected a waive option for this plan type. The Allocate Savings Investments grid will be displayed if applicable.

You can also specify how employee contributions should roll over when plan or regulatory limits are reached. The link to this Specify Rollover page is available only if the plan has been defined as one that enables rollover options to be specified at the employee level in the Savings Plan table.

FSA Plans

Flexible spending account plans (plan type 6x) require enrollment entry of an annual pledge amount. An additional Employee Contribution field may or may not be required. The way this Employee Contribution field appears and acts depends on whether you implement PeopleSoft Payroll for North America.

The field is labeled Employee Contribution Override if you use Payroll for North America and Employee Contribution, if you do not.

When you enter a value in the optional field Employee Contribution Override, the system uses that to calculate the employee's FSA (Flexible Spending Account) contribution, rather than dynamically calculating the paycheck deduction from the Annual Pledge value. When Payroll for North America is not being used, then the Employee Contribution field is required, because the system does not have sufficient information to dynamically calculate the paycheck deduction from the Annual Pledge.

Use the FSA Contribution Worksheet to determine the exact amount of money the participant will need to contribute per month and pay period to reach a desired annual pledge goal.

The available fields differ depending on whether or not your organization currently implements PeopleSoft Payroll for North America or whether the event in process is an OE (open enrollment) or HIR (hire) event.

• If you do implement Payroll for North America or you are processing an OE or HIR event, the Annual Pledge, Pay Period Amount, and Employee Contribution Amount fields are open for entry. The contributions year-to-date are known to be either zero or can be derived from the employee's paycheck balances.

• If you do not use Payroll for North America, and you are not processing an OE or HIR event, the Contributions Year-To-Date field is also open for entry. In this situation, the system cannot reliably know the contributions year-to-date, so that value must be supplied to complete the equation.

In either situation, you can open all fields for change by selecting the Open Protected Fields for Change check box. Because the system normally calculates the values in the protected fields dynamically, you should use this option carefully.

Note. The Employee Contribution Amount field represents the amount that the employee is contributing in terms of the FSA plan's frequency as set up on the FSA Benefit table, not in terms of the employee's own paycheck deduction frequency.

Pension Plans

You can enter values for the Voluntary Percent (voluntary contribution percentage) and Voluntary Amount (voluntary contribution amount) fields only if the plan option has been defined on the Pension Plan table as one that enables voluntary contributions.

The Pension Base (base salary for pension calculations) field is always available. Use this field to calculate the pension using a salary other than the employee pay rate.

Vacation Plans

When you're entering benefits election information for participant Vacation Buy or Sell plans (Plan Type 9x), you must enter the vacation buy and sell hours. The value that you enter in the Vacation Hours field represents the number of hours that an employee buys or sells for the plan year.

See Also

Setting Up Benefit Plans

Enrolling Participants

Enrolling Dependents and Assigning Beneficiaries

Access the Dependents/Beneficiaries page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Participant Enrollment, Perform Election Entry, Dependents/Beneficiaries).

Dependent/Beneficiaries Currently on Record

This group box summarizes, for review only, all of the dependents and beneficiaries currently associated with the participant.

Change/Add Dependent Data

Click the Change/Add Dependent Data link to open the Update Dependent/Beneficiary (DEPEND_BENEF) component. The participant's current dependents can be edited, or new individuals added when you have correction authorization to the Update Dependent/Beneficiary component.

Note. When you are adding new dependents because of a life event such as birth or marriage, the effective date for the new dependents should be the same as the Benefits Administration event date.

Elections Requiring Supplemental Information

Displays links to all plan types requiring additional dependent, beneficiary, or savings investment information to complete the employee's election choices. This information can also be entered from the Option Election page, but is repeated here to provide an alternate method of data entry.

See Also

Entering Dependent and Beneficiary Information

Entering Dependent or Beneficiary Data

Access the Supplemental Enrollment page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Participant Enrollment, Perform Election Entry, Dependents/Beneficiaries). Click the Enroll Dependents or Assign Beneficiaries link on the Dependents/Beneficiaries page.

The information displayed on this page depends on the plan type being accessed. This page presents essentially the same field layout as found on the Option Election page for enrolling dependents, assigning beneficiaries, and allocating savings investments.

Validating and Loading Elections

This section provides an overview of validation and loading and discusses how to:

• Force-finalize participant events.

• Find prepared participants who qualify for termination.

• Find employees with late enrollment forms.

• Post elections to Base Benefit tables.

Understanding Validation and Loading

When the Benefits Administration process validates and loads elections associated with participant events, it reevaluates the events in much the same way that it did during the option preparation phase. The difference is that the participants have had a chance to update their benefit election information and their choices have been entered into the system.

The system evaluates the updated benefits information using the same set of eligibility rules and event rules that it used to determine options. It also recalculates benefit election defaults where appropriate. This is important because these defaults may possibly have changed if events are processed out of sequence, or if changes are made to Base Benefit tables in the interim between runs of the Benefits Administration process. In this case, the recalculated defaults may not match the defaults shown on enrollment forms or inquiry pages.

During finalization, the system also assigns excess credits to plans in which the participant is enrolled. If the participant event processes correctly, it loads the new option elections and related information to the Base Benefits tables that store benefits information for the associated participant. It creates rows for new, changed, or terminated benefit option enrollments, but only if the new enrollment is different from the existing enrollment. (That is, simply reelecting an existing coverage does not generally cause a new row to be inserted into Base Benefit tables if all election-related data is the same).

Processing errors during validation and loading might be caused by:

• Problems with the new election information that was entered into the system during data entry.

• HR information linked to the participant event.

• The design of the related eligibility rules, the event rules, or benefit program associated with the event.

You need to evaluate the error to determine whether anything needs to be fixed. If only the employee's election data needs to be corrected, then an event in EE status will be picked up for further processing during the next run of the schedule. However, if you need to correct the employee's HR data (which could affect his benefits eligibility), or if you need to correct the underlying benefits rules or setup, then the event must be specifically reprocessed back to the first phase of benefits processing (scheduling, event assignment, or option preparation).

Note. Event Maintenance and Open Enrollment schedules are processed the same way during validation and loading.

See Also

Creating Event Rules

Reviewing Benefits Administration Process Results

Entering Participant Benefit Elections

Force-Finalizing Participant Events

When you tell the system to finalize a participant event, it brings that event to an FE process status, even if it has been processed with errors. If the event is at a process status of ET or EE (election error), the system loads the participant's valid elections to the Manage Base Benefits business process tables. If the event is at any other process status, the system applies the appropriate default elections and loads them into the Base Benefit tables. The system also applies and loads default elections to replace elections that have been made in error.

You can force-finalize individual participants with the Final check box on either the Event Status Update page or the Controls page of the Processing Controls Update component. On the next run of the Benefits Administration process, the system automatically force-finalizes all participants with the Final check box selected.

If you're processing an Open Enrollment schedule, you can force-finalize all of the participants within that schedule. You'll arrange this when you set up the run control for the Benefits Administration process.

Open Enrollment schedules can be force-finalized because this method fits in with the nature of the Open Enrollment process, which has a finite set of start and end points. At the end of the enrollment period, you would force-finalize any employees who hadn't yet made their elections. Presumably, the open enrollment event rules that you create would enforce your business policies regarding failures to make positive elections (or reelections) in certain critical or regulated plan types.

Event Maintenance schedules, on the other hand, are processed on an ongoing basis. Each employee in a typical Event Maintenance schedule can be associated with a variety of different events and triggered actions at a given point in time. As you process certain events for the participant, more events are triggered for later Event Maintenance processing. The Event Maintenance procedure has no end, so enabling the forced finalization of an entire Event Maintenance schedule does not make sense isn't reasonable.

See Also

Reviewing Processing Results for Participant Events

Reprocessing for Individual Participants

Defining Open Enrollment and Snapshot IDs

Finding Prepared Participants Who Qualify for Termination

When the Event Maintenance process is run, participants can be identified as qualifying for termination when their participant events reach a process status of PR. The benefits administrator must terminate these employees manually by force-finalizing them.

The Find Terminations Workflow process locates participant events at a process status of PR that qualify for termination after Event Maintenance processing but who have not yet been manually terminated. It then makes a list of these participant events and sends it to the benefits administrator.

Set this workflow in action through the Process Scheduler by selecting Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollments, Events, Find Terminations to Finalize.

This chart illustrates the Find Terminations Workflow process:

Find Terminations Workflow process

See Also

Enterprise PeopleTools PeopleBook: Workflow Technology

Finding Employees with Late Enrollment Forms

When event maintenance is run, a set of notification letters and election forms are sent out to new employees and to employees whose coverage has changed due to a specific event. The Find Late Enrollments workflow retrieves a list of the employees who have not returned their benefits enrollment forms. Find Late Enrollments brings you to the Event Status Update page, where you can select the Final check box to assign default coverage for these employees.

Set this workflow in action through the Process Scheduler by selecting Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollments, Events, Find Non-Respondents.

This chart illustrates the Find Late Enrollments Workflow process:

Find Late Enrollments Workflow process

See Also

Enterprise PeopleTools PeopleBook: Workflow Technology

Posting Elections to Base Benefit Tables

As elections are prepared for posting to the Base Benefit tables, Benefits Administration determines the proper coverage begin dates and deduction begin dates based on event rules defined by plan type. Future-dated elections are inserted into Base Benefit tables as the participant elections are validated or finalized.

Payroll processes such as the Payroll for North America Pay Calculation process select elections based on effective date, using future-dated elections only when they become effective for the current pay period. If the election for a given plan type is equal to the current election, no entry is posted. If a participant is no longer eligible for a given plan type, that participant's current elections are terminated by the insertion of a row into the Base Benefit table for the plan type.

Inserting termination rows into the Base Benefit tables (rather than making a current row inactive) facilitates rolling back or reprocessing elections that have been posted to the Base Benefit tables. You can reverse Individual elections—or groups of participant elections—out of the Base Benefit tables by identifying those participants for reprocessing.

Note. If you were to look at the physical record structures underlying the Base Benefits election tables, you might notice that it still contains the fields Coverage End Date and Deduction End Date. This is for historical reasons only, and their use is discontinued, having been replaced by the approach of inserting superseding Termination, Waive, or Election rows. You should not create any processes that update these end date fields or any fields that rely on them.

Printing Confirmation Statements

This section provides an overview of confirmation statements and discusses how to generate confirmation statements.

Understanding Confirmation Statements

You typically create a confirmation statement when an event reaches FE status. Confirmation statements provide participants with a report of their current elections, dependent and beneficiary information, and investment information after event maintenance or open enrollment processing has finished.

You can modify the forms as necessary to meet the unique requirements of your company. The confirmation statement printing process is similar to the enrollment form printing process.

Note. You can also print confirmation statements for events with EE status. Confirmation statements are printed only for events with a Process Indicator value of Normal. Unless you are reprinting forms, statements are printed only for participant events for which the Confirmation Notify Date field is either blank (no form has been previously printed) or contains a date that is before the last processing date (the event has been reprocessed since the form was printed).

Page Used to Print Confirmation Statements

Running Confirmation Statements

Access the Print Confirmation Statements page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Participant Enrollment, Print Confirmation Statements, Print Confirmation Statements).

The options on this page are almost identical to those on the Print Enrollment Statements page.

To create print IDs, you use the Reprint Selected Statements page, exactly as you do for enrollment forms.

Reprocessing Events

This section provides an overview of event reprocessing and discusses how to:

• Reprocess for individual participants.

• Reprocess events for selected groups.

• Reprocess open enrollment schedules.

Understanding Event Reprocessing

Reprocessing may be necessary in a number of instances. For example, you may want to reprocess an event when it is processed out of order or when eligibility information related to the event has been changed. You may also need to reprocess finalized events in cases in which employees find errors in their confirmation statements.

You can reprocess events to any previous stage of the Benefits Administration cycle. You can reprocess entire open enrollment schedules as well as individual events.

Analyze the situation carefully before you reprocess: in some cases, reprocessing can have an adverse effect on employee data, especially when you reprocess large numbers of employees without analyzing the situation beforehand.

Reprocessing Flow

When you reprocess a participant event, the system backs the event out to the stage that you indicate on the Controls page of the Process Status Update component, the Event Status Update page, or the Open Enrollment/Snapshot run control page. So if you have an ET event and you reprocess it to an AS status, the system backs out all of the election information that you entered for the event and disregards all of the prepared options.

Then the system moves the event through the process again. If an event is reprocessed back to AS process status, the system then attempts to process the event all the way to the PR process status, where it will await the printing of enrollment forms and data entry of employee elections. Option eligibility, costs, credits, defaults, and preentry values are rechecked.

RE Status

Events that have already been finalized and loaded can be reprocessed to RE status, which acts as a stand-in for the NT process status. After you reenter data for the participant event, the system attempts to validate and load the elections to get the event back to the FE status.

See Also

Process Status and Reprocessing Finalized Events

Pages Used to Reprocess Events

Reprocessing for Individual Participants

Access the Update Event Status page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollments, Events, Update Event Status, Update Event Status).

You see all events currently in BAS_PARTIC for the participant and benefit record number combination that you select in descending date order, so the current events are at the top. The event currently in process has an event status of Open.

Note. Only one event can have an event status of Open. You cannot change another event to Open status until the current event is closed.

Process Indicator

You use the Process Indicator options to indicate how the event is to be reprocessed on the next run of the Benefits Administration process. The following table describes Process Indicator values.

See Also

Scheduling Events and Assigning Benefit Programs

Analyzing Disconnected Events

Manually Updating Event Status

Investigating and Voiding Disconnected Events

Reprocessing Events for Selected Groups

Access the BenAdmin Processing Controls (results) page (Benefits, Manage Automated Enrollment, Events, Update Processing Controls, BenAdmin Processing Controls).

The fields on this page are similar to those on the Update Event Status page, described in the previous section, except that you can set reprocessing indicators for multiple participants.

See Also

Scheduling Events and Assigning Benefit Programs

Analyzing Disconnected Events

Defining Open Enrollment and Snapshot IDs

Reprocessing Participant Events

Validating and Loading Elections

Managing Multiple Jobs

Reprocessing Open Enrollment Schedules

You can use the Open Enrollment/Snapshot page of the Run Control component to reprocess every participant in an open enrollment schedule. Select a reprocessing value in the Reprocess group box and run the Benefits Administration process again.

The following table summarizes the processing performed by the system in response to your reprocess request. Only participant events on this schedule will be included. In general, the system excludes participant events with an event status of Closed or Void from Open Enrollment run control reprocessing.

See Also

Defining Open Enrollment and Snapshot IDs